It’s over for the former first round pick
The end of the road has arrived for Rashan Gary in Green Bay. However many games are left in the Green Bay Packers’ 2025 season is exactly the number of remaining games in which Rashan Gary will be a Green Bay Packer. If, and almost certainly, when, Gary is released after this season, the Packers will clear just shy of $11M in cap space for 2026, avoiding paying Gary the $18M he is due in base salary and an additional $1.5M in other bonuses. As has been covered by plenty of other folks at this website, doing this is a no-brainer for the Packers.
Not only has it become clear that Gary is not worth star defensive end money; I also don’t think he’s even worth rostering on gameday.
As noted by our own Justis Mosqueda, Gary’s snaps have already been significantly reduced. Against Baltimore, Gary fell to third in the defensive end depth chart, being outsnapped by both Kingsley Enagbare and Lukas Van Ness. Gary only played on 45% of snaps, and didn’t register a single notable contribution other than getting pinned in by a sub-200 pound wide receiver.
For the most part this season, Gary has graded out as a perfectly fine run defender, at least per PFF. His 72 run defense grade ranks in the top 20% of qualifying edge defenders. The primary problem for him has been his complete absence in the passing game since the first month of the season. Gary has not registered a single sack since week 8 against Pittsburgh. At that point in time, Tucker Kraft’s ACL was still intact.
“But sir,” you say, “aren’t pressures more indicative of pass rushing performance than sacks?” And to that I say you fool, you silly silly fool, yes. But not all pressures are created equal, and Gary produces basically none of the good ones.
On a per-snaps basis, Gary’s ability to get pressure quickly is mind-bogglingly bad. For reference, the league-average starting defensive end quick pressure rate is about 5.5%.
There’s just no juice left in Gary’s game anymore. Not only is Gary unable to get pressure quick enough to impact a play, but even his run defense comes with major caveats. Remember that Gary hasn’t registered a single sack since the game against Pittsburgh? Rashan Gary has not registered a single tackle-for-loss since Pittsburgh. But sacks are of course counted as TFLs in the NFL. Rashan Gary does not have a single non-sack TFL this entire season. Sure, he can hold an edge alright in most situations, because he’s allegedly playing at about 280 pounds, but he’s not making any plays in any phase.
With very poor production in both the run and pass phases, Gary looks like a reserve defensive end, but he doesn’t do reserve defensive end things from a roster perspective. Not including field goal block, Gary has played 13 special teams snaps since the start of the 2021 season. All of those came on punt return, and I would bet pretty decent money they all came in punt-block scenarios. And you, dear reader, have seen Rashan Gary move. Do you really want him playing special teams snaps? And with Green Bay down so many tight ends to injury already, they really do need special teams snaps out of their defensive end body types.
The time has come when the Packers need to make actual gameday roster decisions. Do they really want to burn a gameday roster spot on a reserve defensive end who is perhaps the least effective pass rusher in the NFL and who also can’t play on special teams? There’s no reason to placate Gary, who is going to be off the roster in three months anyway. There’s no salvaging of trade value, as no one in their right mind is going to give up any compensation for a player due as much money as he is and with a production record this poor. The only reason to not healthy scratch him is that he still wears the captain “C” on his chest. Gary, by all accounts, is a good dude and well-liked in the locker room, but in a team that could regularly stand to be more cutthroat with its playing time and roster decisions, the time has come for him.
Category: General Sports
